War of Hearts

by S. Young

  Thea laughed through her tears. “Hey, you.”

  Conall pushed up into a sitting position, tugging Thea into his lap. He buried his head in her neck and they shuddered in each other’s arms for a second as they tried to get a hold on their emotions.

  “You almost died,” she whispered, her voice hoarse with grief.

  His grip tightened. “But you didnae let me.”

  Thea drew back, cupping his face in her hands, wondering how it was possible to need a person so much. Her blood stained his lips, reminding her of how close he’d come to death. The idea was unbearable. Losing her parents left her with a gaping hole in her soul. Losing Conall would obliterate her. It was as beautiful as it was terrifying.

  “I was so scared,” she admitted.

  Conall nodded slowly. “Aye, lass. Me too. That’s what it is to be mated. It’s a ‘cannae live without each other’ deal.” Anger blazed in his icy eyes. “Which is why I dinnae appreciate you offering your life for mine.”

  He was lecturing her? Now? She hadn’t even wrapped her head around the whole mating thing yet. “Seriously? You would have done the same thing.”

  He grumbled at that, but his gaze drifted over her shoulder. Awe crept into his expression. “You wiped out fourteen vampires, Thea. You became pure sunlight.”

  She nodded, more than a wee bit wary of the door she’d opened inside her soul. “I’m a little scared of myself.”

  “Don’t be.” He turned her face to his. “You can control this.”

  Thea studied him, hoping he was right. He had so much faith in her, it was humbling. “Did you really not know? About … our mating? How can it be true?” There was a part of her, the part that just wiped out fourteen vampires to save his life, that believed it to be true. She’d trusted Conall because she’d known deep down who he really was, and how could she have known that without some bond or connection pulling them together?

  Yet, her logical side, belonging to that person who had been running on her own for years, found the whole idea a little too spectacular. After all, she and Conall had only met a few days ago, even if it did seem much longer.

  Conall’s brow furrowed in thought. “I smelled you on my skin the morning on the ferry. But I thought it was just from sex. Now”—he nuzzled her throat, drawing in her scent—“you smell of me too.” His grip tightened, and she felt his body harden against her. “I cannae let you go now, lass.”

  Truthfully, Thea didn’t want him to. She couldn’t deny what she’d felt when she thought he was dying. Everything inside her had wanted to die too. But it wasn’t that simple. “The pack, Conall. I’d put the pack in danger.”

  “You just killed the biggest threat.” He nodded to Eirik’s ashes. “Once word reaches the Blackwood Coven you fried the oldest vampire in the world, they might think better of coming after you. And if they dinnae, we’ll go somewhere they cannae find us.”

  Shocked, Thea slumped against him. “You’d leave the pack?”

  “To protect you, I would. But first we need to get Callie back.” His expression hardened to granite. “There is no way on earth I’m letting you face Ashforth alone.”

  Sensing his resolve, Thea didn’t see any point in arguing. Honestly, she wanted him by her side when she finally dealt with Ashforth. Still, the thought of him leaving his pack did not sit well with her at all. She knew how much they meant to him and how much Torridon meant to him.

  However, it was a discussion for another time. “What now?”

  “We go back to Torridon and we rally the pack. We’ll need to come up with a plan to get Callie and James back without them coming to harm.”

  Nodding, Thea stood and reached for Conall, who got to his feet with ease. “I feel stronger,” he said, staring at his hands.

  “My blood.” Her stomach flipped unpleasantly at the blood covering Conall’s shirt. There was so much of it. It was all over her too from when they’d held each other. “We need to clean up.”

  Hearing the rasp of pain in her voice, Conall grasped her chin in his fingers and leaned down to brush a kiss across her lips. She could taste the coppery tang of her blood on his lips. “I’m fine, Thea.” His eyes dropped to her wrist, and he frowned before pulling it toward him for study with more force than he probably intended. The wound from the iron blade had barely closed, the jagged cut swollen and painful.

  Scowling, Conall’s gaze fell to the floor where the iron dagger lay in a pile of vampire ashes. His eyes flew to her. “Thea,” he whispered, realizing what she’d done.

  Thea tugged on her wrist and he reluctantly let it go. “The wound wouldn’t stay open long enough for you to drink. I had to.”

  “It’ll scar permanently,” he said, his voice hoarse.

  “You’re alive. That’s all that matters.”

  Conall’s eyes blazed. “You know I’d do the same for you.”

  She nodded, emotion thick in her throat. She had to clear it to speak. “I’ll go out to the car for our backpacks. You use the traitor’s shower.” Thea squeezed Conall’s arm as she felt the tension riot through him. “I’m sorry about Vik.”

  The muscle jumped in his jaw. “I’m sorry I trusted him and put you in danger.”

  “No.” Thea stepped into him. “I won’t let you blame yourself.” She glanced around the apartment, noting all the research material and books Vik had left behind. “I wonder where the bastard took off to.”

  A growl rumbled up from Conall’s throat. “I know where he is. I’ll always know and when this is over, there’s nowhere on earth he can hide from me.”

  Thea couldn’t shake the image of that vampire stabbing Conall in the neck, especially not with Conall still covered in his own blood. Vik would pay for that. “Us,” she bit out, her eyes bleeding gold. “There’s nowhere on earth he can hide from us.”

  23

  As Conall was out of cash and unable to use his credit card to buy Norwegian krone, Thea suggested they steal Vik’s credit card. She laughed at the Scot’s expression. “He betrayed us, Conall. A little financial aid is not a lot to ask.”

  “I shouldnae have to steal from anyone,” he muttered, drying his hair with a towel as he slumped on Vik’s sofa. His hair fell in damp curls around his forehead and at the nape of his neck. Thea had to resist the urge to stride across the room and bury her hands in it.

  The need to feel him, real, alive, his body against hers, was almost unbearable.

  Mate.

  It explained these overwhelming feelings, yet it was still difficult for her to wrap her head around. So instead, she rummaged through Vik’s drawers, and when that was unsuccessful, she moved to the next logical location. The jackets hanging by the door.

  “Jackpot.” She tugged the leather wallet out of a tailored wool coat. The vampire really had been in a rush to get the hell out of Dodge. Weaselly little coward. “Ah, even better.” Thea pulled out a thick wad of krone. “No one can follow a cash trail. This should be enough for a hotel room.” She frowned. “But not enough for the ferry.”

  While Conall had been showering, Thea had used Vik’s computer to find a ferry crossing to the UK. Unbelievably, there wasn’t a direct passenger ferry. There was only a freight ferry from Brevik, Norway, to Immingham, England.

  It was a thirty-six-hour crossing with no cabin, but it would have to do. The plan was to get a hotel room in Oslo, sleep away the exhaustion of almost dying, and then drive to Brevik in the morning where they’d catch the ferry to England.

  “We’ll use my credit card,” Conall said, standing up to pull on a fresh T-shirt. “We’re on our way home. It doesnae matter if Ashforth tracks us.”

  “But a ticket from Norway to England will make him suspicious. He’ll want to know why we detoured this way. We’ll use Vik’s.” Thea gave him a look. “We do what we have to do to survive.”

  He deliberately looked around the apartment at the fifteen piles of ash they’d leave as a present for Vik. Conall’s pale gray eyes returned to hers. “That we do,
lass.”

  Deciding to shower at the hotel, Thea changed her clothes and scrubbed off the blood spatter on her face. Conall had used the first aid kit to bandage her wrist and as he did so, Thea admitted to herself she’d be glad for a night’s rest. The iron had weakened her, and she felt slightly lethargic. The last thing she did before they left Vik’s apartment was grab his copy of Jerrik’s writings on Faerie. When she had time, Thea wanted to read about Eirik’s brothers’ accounts for herself.

  They found a hotel in the center of Oslo and as soon as they walked into the room, Conall ordered room service. In the shower, Thea scrubbed her body clean and fought the urge to scream as images of Eirik clasping her by the throat while Conall lay dying beyond her grasp flashed over and over in her mind.

  Conall had been right earlier. It didn’t matter if she really was a member of a now-mythological race. There were people out there who believed she was. Even she believed she was. It was enough to put her in danger for the rest of her life, and thus anyone who came into contact with her. Nearly everyone she’d ever loved had died, and the thought of adding Conall to that list was soul destroying. She should leave him. After she helped him get his sister and beta back, Thea had to leave him to protect him. The thought trembled through her as she leaned her forehead against the hard tile and fought back an indignant sob.

  Before Conall, being alone was a fact of life. One she bore.

  Going out into the world, leaving him behind … it didn’t bear thinking about.

  And there was the fact she could never outrun him.

  Somehow Thea didn’t think Conall would let her go so easily.

  That thrilled her more than it made her despair.

  She was so selfish.

  Yet something else Vik had told them that morning prodded at her, pricking to life a spark of hope she couldn’t shake.

  While drying her hair, Thea watched Conall dive into the food room service had delivered. In fact, they watched each other, as if afraid to look away in case one of them disappeared.

  Exhausted, Thea had eaten some food, but her wrist still throbbed, and her head was messy and full and foggy. She just wanted the events of the day to disappear for a while.

  She couldn’t remember falling asleep, yet she awoke before dawn, on her left side facing the wall. She was naked, obviously having been disrobed before tucked under the covers. Thea could feel the warm length of Conall’s body pressed along her back, his heavy arm draped over her waist, his hand resting between her breasts. His soft, even breathing on the pillow behind her told her he was asleep.

  Everything that had happened came flooding back in a deluge. She tensed, biting back a whimper. Conall had nearly died.

  She couldn’t get the image of him dying, that silver knife in his neck, all the blood, out of her head.

  There was a small, not very nice part of her that wanted to be angry at the wolf for becoming so integral, so important to her happiness. A mating bond. Jesus Christ! Why did he have to come along and wolf-bond with her?

  Or was it her fault?

  Eirik had said the mating bond had been passed down by the fae, so if she was fae, then actually the mating was her fault.

  So lost in her thoughts, Thea didn’t hear Conall’s breathing change. She only realized he was awake when she felt a kiss upon a scar on her back. Thea went rigid for a millisecond, then his lips caressed another scar. And then another. Her body melted. His clasp on her breast became fingertips trailing down her stomach as he placed reverent kisses along her scarred spine.

  Thea had never felt more cherished.

  “Conall,” she whispered, wondering if he could hear how much she loved him in that one word.

  Because the truth was she did love him.

  Thea realized that the moment she thought she’d lost him forever.

  “One day, very soon,” Conall said, his voice gruff with a strange mix of tenderness and rage, “I will help you eviscerate the bastard.”

  Knowing he meant Ashforth, Thea turned to face Conall. He immediately wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into his body. His equally naked body.

  “You undressed me.”

  “You fell asleep, and you felt warm.” He frowned, gently picking up her hand to press a kiss to her bandaged wrist. It still throbbed. “Too warm.”

  “I’m okay,” she reassured him. “It just takes a little longer to heal. It should be good in a day or two.” Tracing her fingers along his stubbled cheeks, Thea drew in a deep breath as she prepared herself to make her proposal. Even though she knew Conall seemed perfectly content with the idea they were mates, that they were permanent, she still feared he’d reject her idea. It would mean a different kind of permanency between them. “I’ve been thinking.”

  He reached for her fingertips and pressed a playful kiss to them. “About?”

  “About bringing so much trouble to the pack.” She ignored his frown and forged ahead. “The Canids will be pissed about the broken betrothal and let’s not forget that I’m a constant source of danger for your people.”

  Conall pushed up, bracing his elbow against the pillow so he could rest his head in his palm. Thea tried not to get distracted at the way his biceps flexed. It reminded her of his muscles flexing during sex, and now was not the time.

  “Thea, the Canids will understand. After all it’s better I found you now than after a marriage arrangement with Sienna.”

  The mere thought of Conall marrying another woman made her stomach lurch unpleasantly. The possessive anger that heated her blood never failed to surprise her. She hadn’t thought herself capable of territorialism. It was animalistic and primal and a little embarrassing.

  She knew she’d failed to hide what she was feeling by the smug quirk to Conall’s mouth. “Are you sure you’re not part wolf?” He bent his head to nuzzle her face, his stubble scratching pleasantly against her cheek. “You’re possessive enough.”

  What a helpful segue. “Speaking of …” Thea pulled back to look into his eyes. She wondered if he could hear her heart pounding. “Vik told us that story about the fae woman whose mate turned her into a wolf …”

  He looked confused by the mention of the story and then understanding quickly dawned. Conall jerked away from her, his features taut with tension. “Aye, he also said another fae died from the werewolf’s bite.”

  Thea could already feel her heart faltering with his coming rejection. Still, she persevered. “Shouldn’t we consider it? If I’m not fae, if I become a werewolf instead, then I’ll no longer be a target—and the pack, you, won’t be in danger.” Forcing herself not to run from his horrible silence, Thea instead snuggled into him, pressing her forehead to his throat. “I don’t want to live forever.” Not without you.

  His hands tightened on her biceps.

  Then he pushed her away.

  Thea watched, angry and dejected, as Conall rolled across the bed and got out. His movements were jerky, agitated as he hauled up his underwear and jeans. “We dinnae even know if you are fae.”

  She swallowed past the lump of hurt in her throat and sat up. “But we know there are people out there who believe I am and that’s what matters. If I was like you, we wouldn’t have to worry. And I wouldn’t have to watch you grow old and die while I stayed stuck like this for eternity.”

  If he heard the bitterness or heartbreak in her voice, he didn’t show it.

  “But if you don’t want me to be one of your pack, I get it.”

  Conall had been mid-stride across the room, seemingly in pursuit of his T-shirt, when he halted and turned to look at her with such incredulous anger, she flinched. “You’re my mate,” he bit out. “You’re already a member of my fucking pack. It isnae about that. It’s about the fifty-fifty chance that my bite could kill you. So the answer is no.”

  Outrage swamped Thea at his high-handed dominance. She threw back the covers. “It’s not up to you.” She crossed the room, avoiding him as she reached for her own clothes. Pulling on her underwear, sh
e couldn’t even look at him. “It’s my goddamn body, Conall. My life. My decision.”

  “You’re my mate.” The words sounded torn from him, drawing Thea’s regard. His expression was haggard. “Life-altering decisions are made together.” He moved to her, his eyes dragging down her half-naked body and back up again. “Your life is now my life. Your body is now my body.”

  Thea inwardly shuddered against the magnetic pull of their bond. She wanted to launch herself into his arms so they could take out their frustration on each other but … she’d made her own decisions for years. No one, not even Conall, would take that independence away from her.

  She turned away, pulling her shirt over her head. As she shrugged it down, her voice was ice. “Caveman bullshit.” She glared at him over her shoulder. “Ashforth took away my choices for six years. I’ve been fighting for the right to own myself for another six. Whatever this is between us, I don’t belong to you. I belong to myself.”

  He looked like she’d gutted him, and pain flared across Thea’s chest at the thought of hurting him. Still she remained steadfast against the pull of their bond.

  “I would never …” He cleared his throat, furious reproach blazing in his eyes. “Do not compare me to him. There is a difference between thinking someone is a possession and belonging to someone, Thea. Whether you like it or not, this mating bond means I do belong to you and you do belong to me. Because we’re a part of each other.” His gaze darkened. “At this very moment, I wish that wasnae true because I never imagined I’d end up with a mate that could even think about asking me to do something that might kill her. Aye, I could bite you and you could live a wolf’s life, with a shorter life span, and no eternity to worry over. Or I could bite you and you could die.” He took a measured step toward her. “And I would have to live with the fact I’d killed my mate for the rest of my miserable fucking life. You would ask that of me?”

  Understanding dawned and remorse instantly wiped out Thea’s anger. “You know I didn’t mean...” He was right. She hadn’t thought about that. She’d only been thinking of herself.